How to Find Your Perfect Website Designer

Be Prepared, Know What You Want

Before you even start looking for a website designer, you need to know what you want. Do you know what content you want on the website? You need to think about what pages you would like, what you want to say, the images you want, the fonts and the colors. In short, have your branding ready and a clear idea of what you want the website to do for you and your clients. You don’t want to focus on your one-to-one sessions if you really just want to sell eBooks.

To help you get prepared for this, you can download my Free ‘Having All the Answers; The Website Preparedness Worksheet’ by signing up here.

Referrals Are Best

Ask you fellow coaches who already have websites, or take a look at other coaching sites on the internet, which align with your style and niche. Oftentimes, there will be a ‘Designed by _____’ in the footer of the website. If you like the site, click on that and it will take you to the designer’s website. You can start a conversation with them already knowing that they can design something you like.

Personality Matters

You will be in contact with your website designer quite a lot, so make sure that their personality is one that you enjoy working with. For example, I love to communicate in detail and often daily with my clients and consider it a relationship that needs to be nurtured and grown. But you may want someone who just does the work and lets you know when they are done. You need to know what kind of personality you work well with and find a website designer who has that personality.

You Get What You Pay For

There are so many options when it comes to price for a website. The range could be $200-$5000 and up for a 5-page website depending on the functionality you need, but mostly the designer you choose. The old adage, ‘You get what you pay for’ is very much true when it comes to website designers. Sometimes you get lucky, but most often, your hunt for the cheapest will get you shoddy work that needs to be redone by a competent website designer. I cannot tell you how many clients I have gotten because they went on elance.com or fiverr.com and chose the cheapest option. You can find good website designers on these sites, but never choose a designer based on the cheapest price only.

Logistics

Getting the website done takes some forethought on the logistics. Think about the timing of your launch, how quickly do you want your website completed? How do you want to communicate with your designer (I like to use WhatsApp, Trello, and email, but will use what my client prefers). Do you care if they are in the same time zone as you for ease of communication? These aspects of your relationship will impact the final look and feel of your website, so make sure to have the logistics set out in your mind.

Contracts and Scope

As you probably already know from having clients yourself, it is important to know the boundaries and scope with your website project. You need to know exactly what you need and want from your website so that you do not incur costs outside the proposed price of your project. Do you want them to find or make images for you? Do you want them to copy edit your content? Do you want them to integrate certain functions? You need to clearly define EVERYTHING you want the website to do and what you want on each page.

Then, make sure that EVERYTHING is included in the contract that the website designer sends you. It will make you and your website designer happier knowing exactly what is expected.

In summary, hiring and working with your website designer should be a fulfilling and fun experience. And your website should be exactly what you want and need if you have the perfect website designer for you. If you have any questions or tips to add, please leave a comment below! I would love to help you!

Jenny Mitchell

Jenny Mitchell has been a WordPress website designer and developer for coaches for the past 7 years. She is also co-founder and technical and logistics manager for The Coach Guardian. Jenny loves to share her knowledge in all aspects of building an online presence with coaches.

https://jenny-designs.com/

Jenny Mitchell

https://jenny-designs.com/

This Post Has One Comment

Levi Armstrong November 30, 2021 Reply
Luisa, my friend, plans to start blogging soon. She’s looking for a website designer to help her make her website. I’ll tell her about your advice on not choosing a designer based on price alone to ensure she gets satisfactory service. Thanks for this.